Dr. Roy Spencer and the Myth of a Valid Global Climate Science

The Dr. Roy Spencer site has a post, about an experiment to show a cold object can warm a hotter object (by interposing a cool object between the hotter object and a much colder object). My response:

"Now, this experiment does not prove that gases can do what the cardboard has done....It only answers the 2nd Law violation claims some have made against a cool object (here, the cardboard sheet) causing a heated object to be warmer than if the cool object was not present, which is what the Earth’s greenhouse effect does."

The "Earth's greenhouse effect" is theorized to work by CO2 re-emitting radiation back to the planetary surface, thus warming it. The cardboard sheet does not work that way; it works, metaphorically speaking (in analogy with the real atmosphere), by REMOVING the "cold of space" from around the "heated Earth" (i.e., the cold of the dry ice from the effective vicinity of the heated surface), by replacing it with the "cardboard sheet" of the atmosphere (or the CO2 in the atmosphere).

Obviously, what your experiment really does, effectively, is force a new, reduced temperature "lapse rate" (say the cardboard sheet effectively removes the dry ice, or "outer space", to infinity, or at least to a much greater distance), so that the heated surface stabilizes at a higher temperature. That is not possible in the real atmosphere; the lapse rate is just -g/c (i.e., it is governed only by the acceleration due to gravity and the effective specific heat of the atmosphere), and has nothing to do with the amount of CO2 (or any other constituent) in the real atmosphere. My own "experiment", the Venus/Earth temperature-vs-pressure comparison proves what I have just written, for CO2 concentration all the way from 0.04% to 96.5% (the two planets' T-P curves, over the full range of Earth tropospheric pressures, are essentially the same--and precisely so, above and below the Venus cloud layer--when only Venus's smaller distance from the Sun is taken into account, despite Earth having only 0.04% atmospheric CO2 while Venus has a nearly pure, 96.5% CO2). Obviously, only the intensity of the incident solar radiation affects the absolute global mean temperature, throughout the tropospheric air column.

I don't know why so many, including yourself, continue to waste their efforts arguing over the "2nd Law" when the First Law is the one obviously being broken in the consensus theory. See "Runaway Global Warming Is Scientific Hysteria". In the consensus theory, the Earth's surface is emitting a mean 390 W/m^2, which is greater than the mean 342 W/m^2 incident from the Sun. That is a gross violation of the conservation of energy. And, also obviously (to this independent physicist), it is 390 W/m^2 because that is the intensity of radiation coming off a blackbody, surrounded by vacuum, at the same temperature as the Earth's surface (288K global mean), and atmospheric scientists must be "measuring" not the radiation being emitted, but the temperature of the surface, misinterpreted as an equivalent blackbody radiation intensity. The only problem, aside from the clear violation of conservation of energy, is that the Earth's surface is not surrounded by vacuum; even a blackbody, with an atmosphere, would not radiate 390 W/m^2 from its surface, because it would also lose heat by conduction and convection, so it could only radiate 390 W/m^2 minus the power per unit area lost through those other transfers of heat from the surface.

And despite what radiation transfer theorists and defenders claim, the Earth is not a blackbody by any reasonable stretch of the imagination. Look at it from space: It is a "Big Blue Marble", not a "Big Black Marble", partially covered by fleecy white clouds.

Of course, the Earth's surface is assumed to be a blackbody in the radiation transfer theory as applied in climate science, so even that sacrosanct (to all you believers) theory is wrong, and wrong-headed, and clearly incompetent.

Nor is most of the incident solar power in visible light, as one commenter above claims. It is only about 45% visible, about the same amount infrared, and 8-10% ultraviolet. Nor is the atmosphere transparent to incident solar radiation, as the infamous Trenberth-Kiehl "Earth Energy Budget" shows fully 67 W/m^2 out of the mean incident 342 W/m^2 is absorbed in the atmosphere. That's about 20% of the incident solar, absorbed in the atmosphere. And that is how, according to my Venus/Earth findings, the atmosphere is REALLY warmed, to its stable global mean, not from the surface at all. (And of course, that is how all the other massive atmospheres in the solar system are obviously warmed, for their clouds absorb all of the incident solar before it can reach those other planetary surfaces, and all of them show a negative lapse rate structure, just like Earth does. That the troposphere might be warmed by incident solar, not from the surface, was the first great hole I found in the consensus theory, and again, my Venus/Earth comparison proves it is so--to any competent physicist, in my professional opinion.

The Continuing Enchantment of the Big Black Marble

The "lukewarmer" wuwt site has a post by fellow lukewarmer Christopher Monckton, purporting to derive the CO2 "climate sensitivity" by no-doubt-settled science (theory, that is). My response:

Lukewarmers like Monckton and Anthony Watts believe in the radiation transfer theory. I don't. As I wrote just a few weeks ago (June 30th), in the post "It Beggars the Imagination", "There are other obvious weaknesses in the radiation transfer theory ...but the main one is this error of making everything a blackbody or a quasi-blackbody, mitigated only by a fudge factor called the 'emissivity factor'."

I won't quote further, or at length, from what I wrote before. I will merely point out that Monckton's exposition of consensus theory assumes not only that the Earth's surface emits as a blackbody surrounded by vacuum, but that the so-called "emission level" in the atmosphere does also.

He says that 97% of the Earth's albedo, or reflected fraction of solar radiation, is due to clouds, not the Earth's surface. That is the same as saying the surface reflects relatively little, and is of course consistent with calling the Earth's surface a blackbody--as the radiation transfer theory assumes--but it is belied by looking at the Earth from space. The Earth does not look like a dark object (a black body) partially covered by bright clouds; it looks like "a big blue marble"--remember? One can see the landmasses, and their colors, clearly from low-earth orbit. It is simply NOT a blackbody, and cannot emit as one. (One might, and perhaps should, also question what fraction of Earth's clouds do not reach as high as the "emission level"--about 5km altitude--since Monckton subtracts the full value of the albedo from the incident solar intensity, and thus assumes all clouds rise higher than that "emission level"; but I don't know the precise answer, and it is of lesser importance than the "blackbody earth" error I want to emphasize.

When Monckton also says the emissivity of the "emission level" in the atmosphere is 1, that defines it as a blackbody also. This only underlines what I wrote in that "It Beggars the Imagination" post, that the theory assumes(!) every level, including the surface, is a blackbody or a quasi-blackbody. Monckton says there are two blackbody levels (and conveniently, just those he is interested in).

The obvious reason for such a ridiculous assumption, as I have written for years now, is that the scientists "measure" what they think are the radiation levels in the atmosphere, at the various levels, when what they must REALLY be doing is measuring the TEMPERATURE, misinterpreted as the equivalent blackbody radiation intensity.

I knew this must be the case years ago, when I realized the "radiation" "measured" coming off the Earth's surface was just that which would be emitted by a blackbody at the same temperature as that surface; but seeing it claimed by Monckton that the "emission level" is also essentially a blackbody drives home the point that the radiation transfer theory is fundamentally unsound, with local temperature responsible for the "radiation" being measured, not vice-versa. (And again, radiation transfer theorists are comparing the Earth's surface to a blackbody SURROUNDED BY VACUUM, which can only give off heat by radiation; while of course, the Earth's surface is surrounded by atmosphere, and heat is lost there by conduction and convection, as well as by radiation--so the whole idea is stillborn, unworkable according to basic physics, i.e., essentially by definition).

Again, it beggars the imagination, that even the "lukewarmers" (the heroes, to so many lay "climate skeptics") should be so enamored of the false radiation transfer theory (which is also disproved by the "global warming pause" of the last nearly 20 years, but an unwary layperson would hardly know it from the continued devotion to the dogma (or propaganda) of the "settled science", which is not science but only mass delusion).

It Beggars the Imagination

When I first became aware of the "global warming" debate in late 2009 (a debate which was, years later, infamously changed to "climate change" when the "global warming pause" from 1997 to the present made it "politically expedient" to direct attention away from the continuing LACK of scientifically measurable global warming), I knew as a hard scientist that to find the truth I needed to dive to the heart of the matter and first seek definitive evidence CONTRARY to the consensus climate theory (of the "global warming greenhouse effect"), because there is no use holding, much less promulgating to the world, a theory that is definitively contradicted by real-world observations. Any scientist working within a theory always needs to keep a close eye out for such game-ending observations; it's known as looking for weaknesses in the theory being followed.

I have since found out that the weaknesses far outweigh the claims, and overwhelm the theory, at every turn, throughout climate science, and this is true not just of the "greenhouse effect", but even of the more fundamental "radiation transfer theory", which outlandishly treats the Earth's surface as a blackbody surrounded by vacuum (because atmospheric scientists "measure" the "radiation" coming off the Earth as just that coming off such a vacuum-surrounded blackbody). This fact alone should have caused competent scientists to demand a better radiation transfer theory, on the grounds that the "observed" Earth radiation is almost certainly a misnomer, and is really a measure of the TEMPERATURE of the surface, mistakenly interpreted as a blackbody radiation intensity (and a real "thermal radiation" spectrum). When one looks at the fundamental assumptions in the radiation transfer theory, one sees this error at a glance, because the theory divides the atmosphere into many layers, and the layers are all assumed to be "grey body" radiators, that is, blackbody radiators attenuated only by a local "emissivity" factor (a constant, less than 1, multiplying the fundamental Planck distribution spectrum of a blackbody). There are other obvious weaknesses in the radiation transfer theory (I have recognized it as basically a light extinction model, not a radiation transfer model), but the main one is this error of making everything a blackbody or a quasi-blackbody, mitigated only by a fudge factor called the "emissivity factor". A graduate student in physics could see that this theory almost certainly only works because the atmosphere is in fact subject to a strict vertical temperature distribution, a predominant, set (i.e., unchanging) distribution of temperatures, and so long as you have a predominant, unchanging set of temperatures, you can formally replace it with a set of "blackbodies", or "greybodies" with "emissivity" fudge factors. Such a theory won't allow you to predict temperature from radiation "forcings", because the reality works just the opposite way, with temperature controlling the "radiation" being measured, not vice-versa. But climate scientists don't want to question that theory, even though their models, based upon "radiation forcings", are infamously unable to track the observable global mean surface temperature. As I have found, from my 2010 Venus/Earth atmospheric temperatures comparison, it is the simple, set temperature distribution of the troposphere (known as the "lapse rate" structure) that controls the global mean temperature, not any constituent of the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide (CO2) or other so-called "greenhouse gases". That set, vertical temperature distribution can be overwhelmed, but only near the surface, by local and transient causes including night versus day, the seasons, localized temperature inversions and weather changes (of course it varies with latitude, but you can use an average, or mid-latitudinal, lapse rate structure, as the century-old Standard Atmosphere does); but it rules the global mean temperature, at any level in the troposphere, utterly, and the Venus/Earth comparison proves that definitively.

In the context of that Venus/Earth comparison, this post is about emphasizing how only the difference in the distance of the two planets from the Sun accounts for the Venus/Earth temperature ratio, which is essentially a constant (1.176) over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures (above and below the thick Venus cloud layer). This fact should be emphasized because of the huge differences in the conditions in the two planetary atmospheres, all of which are presumed by climate scientists to affect the temperature, but which have precisely zero effect in actuality. These differences include the amount of CO2 in the air (0.04% in Earth's versus 96.5% in Venus's); the amount of sunlight reflected, not absorbed, by the planet (either at the surface or off the planetwide cloud layer of Venus), 30% by Earth and 70% or more from Venus; and the difference in planetary surface (Earth being 70% ocean, Venus all solid crust).

But there is a further huge difference in the two planets, in the theory learned and defended by climate scientists, and this post was written primarily to remind everyone of it. It is a truism among today's climate and atmospheric scientists that "the Sun warms the Earth, and the Earth warms the atmosphere". But that physical "explanation" certainly doesn't extend to the other, cloud-enshrouded planets, which all show the same "negative lapse rate" structure that Earth's atmosphere does, even though their clouds absorb all of the sunlight before it can reach the surface. So the lapse rate structure does not depend upon warming the planetary surface first. As mentioned in my Venus/Earth comparison post, other physicists have pointed out that conditions for the "greenhouse effect" are not met on Venus, precisely because the effect requires that the atmosphere be heated from the surface, and not enough sunlight gets through to the surface there to heat it first.

So the biggest "difference" (though it's not real) is the different physics one has to imagine for atmospheric warming on Earth versus Venus. Venus, and all the other planets with massive atmospheres are obviously warmed from the top down, while Earth is believed by today's scientists to be warmed from the surface. Add that "difference", in the supposed fundamental physics of atmospheric warming, to all those other differences between Venus and Earth. And yet, the two atmospheres don't respond differently at all, to all those differences; only the distance from the Sun matters, very precisely.

Despite all the work that has gone into the theories championed and defended by atmospheric and climate scientists, despite the lifetimes of work that have been invested in them, the simple Venus/Earth comparison I did, fully 19 years after the Venus data I used became available, tells me--and any competent physical scientist--they are wrong, and wrong-headed, and indeed incompetent (because I am not a "climate expert", and what I have done is what any competent scientist, even any student of science, should have done more than a generation ago). This state of affairs beggars the imagination--and yet it goes on, as a runaway political agenda, and a cult idea ("global warming", or "climate change"), that is sowing the seeds of destruction in every direction, throughout the world.

No Consensus (or Too Many Chiefs)

Bob Tisdale has a post (also posted on the wuwt site) showing "no consensus on Earth's top-of-atmosphere energy imbalance" among the models touted by climate scientists. These kinds of critical analysis are pretty dense (detailed), especially for laypersons, and I have much better, simpler evidence to offer, so I responded:

Consensus climate science is so bad, it should come as no surprise to learn that a much simpler (and definitive) indictment of it can be made, just from the figure 1 above (Trenberth’s “global earth energy budget”). Concerning that figure, I wrote back in October 2010:

“It all looks straightforward enough, but then when you look closely you see something strange, off on the right side: The radiation coming off the surface is huge, and there is an almost equally huge ‘back radiation’ from the atmosphere to the surface. To a physicist–or at least to this physicist–that strange, gigantic loop of energy between the atmosphere and the surface appears unphysical, out of all proportion to the rest of the diagram.

“And we don’t have to get into detailed physical theory or wordy explanations to pin down what’s wrong with it: The power coming off the surface (the number 390) is larger than the incident power from the Sun (342). (The power shown as ‘back radiated’ by the atmosphere is about as large as that from the Sun, too.)

“Just that one fact is enough for me to see that the ‘climate science’ of the U.N. and the consensus of (so we are told) 97% of all climate scientists–is absurd. No part of the ‘global energy budget’ can be greater than the incident energy. Either their numbers are wrong, or the model being illustrated is wrong. Period, full stop. You don’t have to know, or explain to the world, what is really going on, or why there has been recent ‘global warming’. Just know their explanation is nonsense, basic physics absolutely and undeniably forbids it. Everything else you read is either other scientists trying to show they know what is really going on (which obviously no one does at this point, entirely), or scientists or their followers trying to defend the indefensible, with complex, technical and always wrong-headed arguments.

“Of course, that unphysical loop of excess energy is just what they are calling the ‘greenhouse effect’. And it is garbage, and all the scientists who deny that, or refuse to see it for what it is, should be drummed out of science, or at least be required to undergo re-education. Because they are worse than first-year students, who are generally at least open to learning the hard truth.”

A little later, I realized the 390 W/m^2 supposed to be coming off the Earth’s surface was just that expected from a blackbody at the same temperature (288K), and then learned that the proponents of the radiation transfer theory (behind all those numbers in the “energy budget” diagrams and in discussions of “TOA radiation imbalance”) actually believe and teach, in their theory, that the Earth’s surface radiates like a blackbody poised in a vacuum. At this point, an honest and competent physicist can only recoil in horror, as if at a monstrous snake on one’s doorstep, and demand it be killed forthwith. And that’s where I stand, ever since. Trenberth is a miseducated idiot. All climate scientists are miseducated idiots, for not seeing that lie, of a huge loop of energy between atmosphere and ground, greater than that coming from the Sun, and expecting to get away with presenting it seriously to the world.

…and then I found the “skeptics” didn’t see it either, or pretended not to, because they never speak of it, that obviously ridiculous incompetence at the very heart of the consensus case.

And that (plus my Venus/Earth temperature vs. pressure comparison) is why I always say, there is no valid climate science, and no competent climate scientists.